The defendant first got in contact with Mr Fasoli through gay social networking site Badoo in December 2012 and offered to set up a threesome, the Old Bailey heard.

Marshall invented the persona of a ‘law enforcement operative’ to ‘dominate’ his victim for his own ‘murderous purposes’, the court heard.

Mr Brown told jurors: ‘There is a telling feature of this case – whilst the defendant sought to tempt the deceased into thinking their encounter that night was to be sexual in nature, the sexual element of the night’s events played only a short part early on and soon was superseded by physical domination and then violence.’

At the time of Mr Fasoli’s death, an investigation concluded it was an accident and the fire was sparked by a faulty light which may have fallen onto his bed.